


the bricks in my wall

by poundingsound (bluedreaming)



Category: Miss A, VIXX
Genre: Abstract, Alternate Universe, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 11:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7975171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/poundingsound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Life isn't a game," she says, and brushes his hair out of his eyes. "You need to pay attention."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bricks in my wall

**Author's Note:**

> [poster](http://i.imgur.com/JkO3xMB.jpg)

 

The cursor is blinking on the blank screen when he opens his eyes, falling out of sleep with a sickening thud that feels like a kick to the stomach—

“What the—”

—there’s a beep from the table behind him and Taekwoon spins in his chair, still half asleep, only to see the screen of his phone light up.

Don’t forget to eat supper :)

He takes a deep breath. Blinks. When he turns back to his computer screen, he remembers that he’d just scrolled down earlier, since the previous lines of code were cluttering his concentration.

“You knew that,” Taekwoon tells himself, the words hanging in the air for a moment before they dissolve in the press of fingers against the keys. Click-clack, click-clack, he's going to stand up to go get something to eat, but the tapping of the keys dissolves into the sound of the rain outside his window, drops pitter-pattering against the glass and whatever complaints his empty stomach might make, it's impossible to hear beneath the downpour.

There's a key turning in the lock, and Taekwoon blinks open his eyes. The cursor is blinking on the blank screen, but he scrolls up and the screen is filled with code he doesn't remember writing. His eyes skim across the lines, the rain filling the screen as the main character stands outside the door in the rain, water running in rivulets through his hair and down the back of his shirt.

Light haloes behind him as the fridge door opens, and Fei's voice calls out from the kitchen, "You didn't eat supper again."

Her voice is both amused, and annoyed. Taekwoon rounds his shoulders, eyes slipping across the tops of the letters sliding sideways across the screen before he backs up his work and puts the monitor to sleep.

"Sorry," he says, spinning in his chair before standing up, bare feet cold against the floor and his toes curl in reflexively before he takes the first step towards the archway into the kitchen, just as Fei flicks on the light.

"Oh," he says, stopping in surprise. "Your hair is pink."

Fei rises from where she was bent over, rooting in the fridge, and grins. "Do you like it?"

The colour suits her, brings out the flush of her cheeks, her smile, but Taekwoon feels strangely disjointed. He remembers the sound of the rain, but her hair is dry, and when he glances over at the front door, there's no umbrella or raincoat in sight.

"It's really pretty," he says, and reaches out to run his fingers through the softness. It feels like candy silk, and he wonders if it would taste as sweet if he took it in his mouth.

Fei laughs. "It's not for eating," she says, somehow reading his mind as she reaches out to poke his cheek. "I brought some pad thai." Taekwoon accepts the carton, and they sit down on either side of the small table, looking out over a moonlit courtyard. The concrete is dry; there are no puddles on the ground, and Taekwoon turns the fact over in his mind, mouth full of the sweet crunchiness of peanuts and rice noodles.

 

 

 

 

Their elbows brush, side by side in front of the sink. Taekwoon is up to his elbows in soapy water and there’s a mischievous glint in Fei’s eyes, all too familiar, before she darts a finger down to dab soap suds on his nose.

“Hey!” Taekwoon complains, but he doesn’t really mean it. “That itches.”

“You have hands,” she says, shrugging as she wipes another plate dry. Taekwoon looks down at his hands, at the suds covering the warm water, and Fei is already backing away across the kitchen, towel held up like a barrier when he reaches for her with soapy hands.

“No! Stop!” she laughs, her shoulders shaking too hard for her to get a proper head start as they go down on the kitchen tiles, suds smeared across the dishtowel, Taekwoon’s hair hanging in his eyes. He reaches up to brush it away and the soap sits on his eyelids before it begins to sting.

He blinks, the lights swirling across his vision as the burn sinks in.

"What are you doing?" His eyes are closed, tearing from the soap, but he can hear Fei's voice as she walks through the archway into the kitchen. Taekwoon blinks, tries to rub his eyes and suddenly there's a cool cloth dabbing at the burning until the fire is reduced to ashes.

The light is dim in the kitchen, one of the lightbulbs in the fixtures overhead is flickering, but Fei's hair glistens glossy brown in the remaining gold. Taekwoon lets his fingers slip away from where they'd reached up to touch her fingers.

"I thought you dyed your hair?" he says, voice lilting up in a question; she tips her head and observes him with a thoughtful expression.

"I've been thinking about dyeing my hair pink, actually." He can see it, her laughter, the way the pink brings out the softness of her face.

Taekwoon reaches out to run his finger through her hair, and realizes that it's damp; eyes flicking to the hallway he can see the umbrella spread to dry.

"It's raining?" he asks, bemused. "I didn't hear anything."

Fei flashes him a grin, tapping him on the nose with a fingertip. "Were you stuck all day in front of your computer, writing code?" he asks, but it's not really a question. Taekwoon shrugs.

"Maybe."

"Why are you washing the dishes anyway?" Fei asks, glancing at the sink as she lifts the shoulder strap of her bag over her head, hanging it across the back of a chair with a sigh as she rolls her shoulders back. "Did you actually remember to eat lunch today?"

Taekwoon glances down at the sink of deflating dish soap foam. There's a plate, partially submerged, the tip of an iceberg of memory he can't recall.

"Hmm," he hums, the safer option, and Fei gives him a hug for his apparent effort. Her arms are warm but the hug feels false, something he didn't deserve.

There's a beep from the other room, and Fei unwraps her arms from around him.

"Go check on your computer," she says, fingers trailing along his arm as she steps back. "I need to go shower anyway."

Taekwoon nods, relieved at the reprieve but his arms are cold now that hers are gone.

 

 

 

 

"Have you heard the story about Lao Tzu?" Fei asks.

They're lying in the sun, warm on his skin, the smell of the ocean tangy with salt as Taekwoon inhales, exhales. He shakes his head.

"'Lao Tzu woke from a dream about a butterfly and asked, 'Am I a man, dreaming of a butterfly, or am I a butterfly, dreaming of a man?'" He can hear it in her voice, how intrigued she is by the idea, and his mind flashes back to the game he's working on, lines of code running across the computer screen he's left firmly at home since Fei declared they both needed a vacation.

"Maybe I'm just dreaming this life," she says, and then laughs. "It's a good life, I have no complaints."

 _But what happens when you wake up?_ Taekeoon wonders.

"But what if you don't dream?" he asks instead, opening his eyes a crack, harsh sunlight filling his vision for a painful moment before he blinks them shut again.

"Everyone dreams," Fei says, and by the small current of air stirring over the skin of his arm, he can tell she's waving her arm in a gesture. "Sometimes you just don't know you're dreaming."

Taekwoon wonders what he'll see if he falls asleep. He opens his eyes instead; the sun has shifted and as he sits up, towel falling off his chest, he watches Fei standing in the shallows, laughing as the waves chase her feet.

"Come on!" she calls, beckoning him, her fingernails sparkling metallic as her soft pink hair floats around her shoulders in the ocean breeze. "It's warm!"

Taekwoon sticks out his tongue but stands anyway, letting the towel drop to the arm of the beach chair he was lying on. The grains of sand sink beneath his feet, surrounding his toes as he walks, like tiny hands pulling him back.

 _Don't go,_ he can imagine them saying. _Don't go into the water._ He wades through them, relentless, and reaches for Fei's hand as she pulls him deeper into the waves.

 _Do I know how to swim?_ Suddenly he can't remember, like a dream that's so vivid it feels real. Her brown hair is pink against the sunlight, Rays refracting on the surface of the waves. He stumbles on the pebbled ocean floor, going down into the water.

Everything is blue, bubbles riding towards the surface, like a dream he doesn't want to wake from. _Don't turn off the game_ he thinks.

Time hangs suspended for a moment, shadows flickering across the ocean floor, and then Fei's arms are reaching out, digging into his skin to hitch on his bone, pulling him up into the light.

 _Waking up feels like being born_ , he thinks, as Fei wipes the water out of his eyes. Sometimes he can't read the expression in her eyes, and other times it's startlingly clear.

"Life isn't a game," she says, and brushes his hair out of his eyes. "You need to pay attention."

 

 

 

 

The sunlight is bright but the water is glitching; Taekwoon stares at the screen, switching back to the code, the blood that swims beneath the surface. There's an undercurrent that's nipping at his ankles, and the graphics aren't behaving like he wants them too.

"Knock, knock," Fei says from behind him; when Taekwoom turns his head he can see her standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest.

"You look too pale," she says, pursing her lips. Taekwoon just shrugs, and her words spark and idea, another approach he can take in the water animation that might circumvent the glitching. Fei exhales shortly, the gust inconsequential in the space of the room, but Taekwoon can still feel her exasperation.

And her worry.

"You gave me an idea for how to fix something," he says, not quite a pretext but almost.

Fei laughs, stepping forward to tousle his hair. "I'll give you an hour," she says. "Then you have to do whatever I say."

"Even if you jump off a cliff?" Taekwoon asks, just because.

Fei's expression curls up in a mock-scowl. "As if I would do anything like that," she says, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek before she slips out the door again.

Taekwoon tips his head back, staring at the white ceiling.

When he opens his eyes he's standing at the edge of the shore, overlooking the waves. The sky is white, obscured with thin clouds that trail through the air, creeping cold tendrils snaking down the open edges of his clothes.

Fei's hair is a rich brown, warm like the worn wood of a favourite chair. She's standing further along the shore, arms outstretched to catch the wind, and suddenly Taekwoon is so afraid of falling that his breath catches in his throat.

 _No,_ he thinks, _I'm scared that she'll fall and I'll lose her._

It's better, but it's not quite right either.

"Knock, knock," Fei says from the doorway, and Taekwoon blinks his eyes open again, lines of green from the code still staining his vision.

"Your time's up," she says, and Taekwoon can't help but look back at the screen.

"Just one more—," he begins, but Fei cuts him off, reaching forward to pull him to his feet; his knees threaten to buckle before he steadies himself on her arm.

"See?" she says, voice smug. "You need to get out of here for a while before you turn into a game."

 _Maybe I already am,_ Taekwoon thinks, _Maybe I'm the butterfly._

"Where are we going?" he asks instead; Fei just shakes her head and grins. Her fingers are warm, wrapped around his hand.

 _Maybe I'm just scared of falling in love._ The thought swims through his mind as Fei opens the door to the taxi waiting at the street, bags already in the trunk.

She smiles, her pink hair radiant in the late afternoon glow.

 _Maybe I already have._ Taekwoon follows her into the car, his hand still in hers as they drive away.

 


End file.
